Car shopping

The people in my family are characters. Chances are, if you are reading this, you know me personally. If you know me, you likely know my family and can attest to that statement. I don't mean this in a bad way at all. I love my family dearly. The fact that they are all interesting people makes anything I do with them that much more newsworthy.

Today I went car shopping with my folks. I need a new car for a myriad of reasons I will discuss later. My father is pretty much my personal mechanic, thus he knows a ton about cars. For this reason, I would never buy one without his blessing. My mother loves shopping for anything and everything, so she just had to come.

I saw an offer for a brand new 2008 car that I could actually reasonably afford. I found it on a television commercial. The car is fabulous. I just needed the green light from my father, and all would be mine!

We went to the dealership today and talked with the salesman. I basically knew what I wanted, but he went through his salespitch anyway. My mother was insanely excited about every little feature. A jack to plug my ipod into? Side air bags? A cd player that was standard? My mother was ooohing and ahhhing at all of it. Her favourite part of the car is the little bar on the dash that works as an odometer and gas mileage, tire pressure and oil life information centre. When the salesman went over that, she was insanely excited. My father just nodded his head continuously in approval. Don't get me wrong, I was excited about the car as well, but my mother just gets extremely excited over everything. Anything good or somewhat exciting gets my mother acting like a child on Christmas.

After I was sold on the car and had my father's approval, then came the details part. I got to decide on the colour. I was fine with blue or black. Both are equally wonderful, but my mother kept urging me to make a decision. The way she was talking, one would have thought it was a life or death decision.

I ended up with the black one. It's nice to drive a car that I don't have to worry about an imminent breakdown. With my former car, it wasn't a matter of if. It was a matter of when.